Queen Victoria's Last Love (2012)

The story of Queen Victoria's relationship with her Indian servant Abdul Karim, and how it violated Victorian taboos and stoked royal jealousy, threatening her diamond jubilee celebrations

MAIL ONLINE: Victoria's secret crush: How Queen fell under the spell of Indian servant after death of ghillie companion John Brown: Just imagine. It’s the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, the eyes of the world are on London... and the Prince of Wales threatens to have his mother declared insane. ¶ Unthinkable? Well, that’s what happened to Queen Victoria in 1897 after her Royal Household refused to condone any longer Her Majesty’s shockingly intimate friendship with an Indian servant. ¶ It was a relationship that violated Victorian taboos of race and class, and threatened to destabilise the monarchy and the Empire – yet, although Queen Victoria’s earlier scandalous relationship with her Scottish ghillie [an outdoor servant] John Brown is still common knowledge today, her deep affection for her Muslim servant has been almost forgotten. ¶ A new Channel 4 documentary, Queen Victoria’s Last Love, rediscovers how, as courtiers plotted to depose the royal favourite, the nation’s Jubilee celebrations teetered on the brink of chaos. » | Mary Greene | Friday, April 20, 2012